Where one Gympie snake catcher is getting a lot of business

A Gympie snake catcher thinks there may be a venomous snake hotspot at a local park.

This python was captured by Gympie Snake Catcher Ed Smith in October 2019. Photo: Gympie Snake Catcher

SNAKES! The mere mention of them can strike fear into the heart of many a person.

But not only has a Gympie snake catcher made getting his mitts on the scaly reptiles his bread and butter, he also thinks there may be a venomous snake hotspot at one Gympie park.

Ed Smith, thinks the Marc Dower Park, between Castlereagh Crt and Glastonbury Rd on Southside has more than its fair share of limbless vertebrates because what he has seen recently indicates that business is booming.

“That park on Lilly Avenue on the Southside, Julie and I have picked up venomous snakes there,” Mr Smith said.

“We’re seeing more browns this year than last - there have been a terrific number of browns in the last fortnight,” he said.

“Probably about eight or nine.”

When he talks about browns, Mr Smith is referring to the Eastern Brown Snake and last week he had to remove one from a window frame at Curra.

“It was a pretty big snake, about four and a half foot long (1.5m) and it was a big job to get him out,” Mr Smith said.

He said the snake backed up into the brick work and part of a wall had to be taken down to retrieve the reptile.

“You’ve got to be careful - they can get really aggressive,” he said.

Mr Smith said he had another call out on Wednesday at Glastonbury and another recently at Power Rd, which his clients said was “terrorising their (captive) birds.”

“That was an angry brown. You have to have a lot of patience and use enormous care - and thick demin, gloves, boots - we take great care of ourselves.”

He said eastern brown snakes are hunting all year round and because of the hot dry conditions are exceptionally active at the moment.

But not all the snakes that Mr Smith and his daughter are called upon to remove are venomous - sometimes receiving calls to relocate pythons and tree snakes.

“Pythons love it damp and cooler,” he said.

There have been two suspected snake bite incidences in the Gympie region in the past week.

On Boxing Day a 14-year-old Lagoon Pocket boy sustained a bite to his left hand just after 3pm but didn’t see what bit him.

His mother applied a pressure bandage to the bite and started to transport him to the Gympie hospital and was met enroute by Queensland Ambulance officers.

A woman in her 70s presented at Tin Can Bay ambulance station with a suspected snake bite just after 6pm on Sunday, December 22 and was transported to Gympie Hospital.

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